Monday, August 25, 2014

Gift cards are a nice way to buy stuff froom your favourite store, which doesn't accept bitcoin yet. There has been some gift card trading on LocalBitcoins, but now we have added couple of new features which should make gift card trading much easier.

Contacters can select the amount with dropdown.

Several Gift Card types have been added, you can also select the generic option and name your own.

Monday, August 11, 2014

It has been a long time since there have been any news regarding our ATM project which aims to provide automatization for converting cash to bitcoins and vice versa. Another perks of the Localbitcoins ATM:s are the moderate price and the fact that the device works completely offline. ATM:s are integrated to Localbitcoins website, and the actual bitcoin trade happens on Localbitcoins.com; the ATM only takes care about the fiat handling.

There have been two beta versions of these ATM:s in real life testing at the center of Helsinki, Finland. One of them is in a bitcoin accepting restaurant and another one in 24h kiosk. So far there haven't been any major problems, and minor ones have been carved out during the testing process. If you are visiting Helsinki, you can find those ATM:s from here, and here.

Expect to see more of these ATM:s soon, since we are getting our first production batch out soon, and we are putting one of them on the bitcoin tour, held by Finnish bitcoin company Bittiraha.fi. They will be driving around Finnish archipelago and testing how well Localbitcoins bitcoin ATM performs on the road.

Eventually you will be able to purchase these ATM:s directly from Localbitcoins website. The price of the ATM's is 1500 eur + VAT and shipping costs.

Specifications of the ATM

Buying process: Buyer feeds banknotes to the machine, and gets a secret code in return. The code is used to claim the corresponding amount of bitcoins to your localbitcoins.com account. The exchange rate is defined at the moment the code is used.

Selling process: Seller logs in to his/her localbitcoins account, and goes to the URL of the ATM he/she aims to use for withdrawal. The seller selects the amount he/she wants to withdraw from a dropdown menu. After selecting the withdrawal amount, corresponding amount of bitcoins are reduced from the seller's localbitcoins wallet and the user will receive a code, which is given to the ATM through the keyboard. After the code has been inserted, the ATM will give corresponding amount of notes to the customer.

Accepted bills: All banknotes where the size is inside of the range (width) 60-82 millimeters, and (length) 115-150 millimeters. The device can accept 6 different kind of bills from the selected currency. The device can be programmed to handle almost any known currency, but only one can be used at the time.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Since August of this year, stores accepting bitcoin payment have been emerging in Kexing Science & Technology Park, Shenzhen, where is full of Internet companies. These stores are mainly restaurant. In China, the central bank stated that bitcoin is not currency, but admitted that trading with bitcoin is legal. Although China is one of the biggest markets for bitcoin trade, its bitcoin payment market is still on infancy stage.

Stores: Currently bitcoin payment volume is still small

On the Yuanwei street of Kexing Science & Technology Park, several restaurants have accepted bitcoin as payment. Since the business is just started, cashiers are not familiar with the payment process yet. For example, 'Accept Bitcoin' label has been put on the front door of Cafe de Flore. However, when customers ask if they can pay with bitcoin, cashiers are still muddle-headed. They need time to skilfully process bitcoin payment.

As to Maggies's Club, another bar on the same street, the cashier clearly expressed that they accept bitcoin payment, but customers need download a third bitcoin payment platform, 'Btct' App. Customers transfer bitcoin to their Btct account to finish payment, which is like Paypal in Bitcoin world.

The CEO said she likes the convenience of third payment platform, which has no big difference from Group-Buying platform. Launching bitcoin payment for her bar is icing on the cake, and at least can attract btcer to expand customer pool, even though currently the volume is still very small.

Payment Platform: Still on user development stage

In December of last year, the statement of Central Bank of China has emphasised that bitcoin is not real currency, and forbidden financial institutions and payment institutions to price products or services with bitcoin, but admitted the legitimacy of trading bitcoin, which made bitcoin purely an investment product in China. After experiencing ups and downs, bitcoin price is stabilising between 3589.00 ~ 3634.92 CNY. Bitcoin payment in physical store is still rare. Some bitcoin insider claimed that currently the number of physical stores accepting bitcoin in China is less than 30.

As a third payment platform for promoting bitcoin, the main purpose of Btct is to change the atmosphere of bitcoin speculation in China to the original nature of bitcoin as a payment method. One of the co-founders of Btct said although the number of physical stores accepting bitcoin is still small, Shenzen where has strong Internet cogitation has advantages to promote bitcoin payment. Moreover, Btct provides CNY exchange, which shares the risk of bitcoin fluctuation.